


The Best I Can Do

by drwatsonsjournal



Category: Elton John (Musician), Rocketman (2019)
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-16
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:41:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27045901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drwatsonsjournal/pseuds/drwatsonsjournal
Summary: Reginald Dwight is regretful and sad, having lost his best friend and lyricist after a night of drinking and personal revelation. A week later, Bernie returns.
Relationships: Elton John & Bernie Taupin, Elton John/Bernie Taupin
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	The Best I Can Do

**Author's Note:**

> I was practically screaming at the television, "They don't make out even once?!" 
> 
> I envisioned Bernie going off to have a good think, then returning to the council flat to find Reggie in a state of disarray. Here goes nothin', my first fic in several years, and this is definitely new territory for me.

Reg heard knocking at his bedroom door. 

“Go away!” he growled. He scrambled to pull the sheets over his sweaty body.

The knocking got quieter. “Reg, it’s me.” 

“Oh, bloody hell,” Reg said. “Just a sec.”

He was still sticky, and didn’t really know what to do, as his heart was still pounding. He wiped his hand on a far corner of the bed, and threw his pants into a corner of the room. He hung his legs over the edge of the bunk, pulled on his trousers and walked toward the door.

“Can I come in?” said Bernie.

“Yeah.” Reg opened the door and the light from the hallway streamed in. Bernie’s hair formed a loose nimbus framing his face, which was still in shadow. Reg tensed his jaw muscles. 

Bernie’s eyes darted, looking at Reg, and the bed.

“What? I didn’t interrupt something, did I?” 

“Shhh. You’d better come in first.” Reg said. Bernie stepped inside, and Reg whispered, “Oh, no. Not interrupting at all. I was just finished with the absolute saddest wank of my entire wanking career.” 

They stood face to face for a moment, each trying to read the other’s gaze in the darkness. And then they burst into laughter. 

“Can we?” said Bernie. He gestured toward the bed and sat on the bottom bunk. 

Reg clicked on the lamp, and threw his vest over it to temper the glare. He was about to sit at the tiny desk in the corner, when Bernie patted the bed next to him. “No, over here.”

He took a deep breath and looked Reg in the eye. “Last week, on the roof, I meant it when I said I love you. That’s a fact. I was also scared as shit, so I did what a naïve country boy would do, and I ran away.”

Reg interrupted, “Don’t do this, man. I don’t think I can handle another round of rejection from you and still have enough self-respect to get up in front of people and play our songs.”

Bernie smirked, “You have no idea what you are about to hear, I guarantee it.” 

He gently took Reggie’s hand in his. He said, “I’ve spent the last week at my parents’ doing chores, thinking, and writing. What in the world would I be if I had never met you? I’d be right there--a sad, lonely cowboy poet from Lincolnshire.”

Reg laughed, “You’d be a magnificent cowboy poet. Ha!”

Bernie changed his grip and touched Reggie’s fingertips to his lips. “You have these soft hands, and yet you use them to do such violent things to your piano!” 

Reggie’s eyebrows shot up, and then he grimaced, “I’m a monster. I’m unlovable. I’m weak to give in, and drag you down with me.” 

“No. No, Reg. I refuse that description of you.” Bernie kissed Reg’s palm. “To me you’re the strongest man I know, to keep this a secret for so long and to endure living with your parents.”

“You’re so full of shit,” said Reg.

Bernie wound his fingers into Reggie’s. “Let me tell you a story that might sort things out.”

Reg studied his face, then said, “All right.”

Bernie said, “I answered Liberty’s ad in a hopeless effort to find someone, anyone, who could do something with my words. Then I got your tapes in the post, and they took the top of my head clean off. The tunes were rough around the edges, but there was something absolutely electric about your melodies. You put so much soul in your singing. I thought, ‘Who the hell is this?’

Before we met at the office, I had no idea exactly what sort of person you’d be. I mean, I liked what I heard on the demos, but everything else was a bit of a mystery. And there you were, looking like a quiet, handsome ginger in a cravat. But then once we got going, we just couldn’t shut up. Suddenly everything seemed possible.

When I write with a certain style in mind, you take it in five directions I would never see coming. No one could. Without you I am just a sheaf of scribbles on paper blowing down from Arabella’s angry hands.”

He put his hands on Reggie’s bare shoulders, and said, “You caught me by surprise on the roof, that’s for sure. Up until earlier that night, I didn’t dare question your romances. But to see you so eager, looking into your absolutely open face, and then to leave you so disappointed made me hate myself. I literally had to shovel some shit before I could reckon with that. Will you forgive me?”

“You know I do. But I don’t want you to pity me or feel sorry for me,” said Reg.

“But that’s just it,” said Bernie. “As I was driving toward Sleaford, I thought, ‘What am I?’ I had no words for what I am to you, what we are to each other. And after a week of intense consideration, don’t feel that way anymore. I’ve got a book that’s a week overdue, and I hope you won’t fine me.”

Bernie leaned forward slowly and softly pressed his lips to Reggie’s. He wrapped his arms around him, and rested his head on his shoulder. Reggie returned the embrace, sinking into Bernie’s warmth.

“I’m so sorry it’s late,” said Bernie. He lingered a moment, and then pulled back to see Reggie’s face.

“I’m…shocked. I’m…too scared to tell you how I feel,” said Reggie. 

Bernie gently punched his arm and said, “Pretend I’m an agony aunt, then.” 

Reggie’s shoulders slumped forward and he held his face in his hands. He said, “There’s this person who I’ve known for a couple of years, but it feels like I’ve known him forever. I dreamed for so long of having a brother, and then later on, of having someone to love me, knowing deep down that I had this shameful secret. I tried to date girls, to will it away. It absolutely did not work, and I had no idea where to find someone like me. Except for Baldry, of course.

So I kept my head down, and tried to be the best rock and roll piano player I could possibly be, playing other people’s songs, failing to write my own.”

He paused and rubbed his forehead. 

“Ah, screw it. Before I had that envelope in my hands, I was just some frustrated piano pounder. You’re everything I’ve ever wanted in a friend. And you are…Jesus, Bernie, I don’t know how to say this. The moment I first saw you, I knew I was in for trouble. 

So when you left the other day, I thought that was it. I had ruined my life.”

Reg looked up and wiped his eyes on his arm.

“I’ve been thinking about this over and over,” said Bernie. “When I hear you play the piano and sing my stories back to me, adding new colors and dimensions with your music…it’s as if my heart got up out of my body and became a living, breathing person. Do you know what that’s like? It’s terrifying.”

“I think I do,” said Reg. “You write so honestly about things I could never say. And now I get to sing them. Before you, I was just plonking away. And now I am flying.”

“You are a marvel,” said Bernie. He paused a moment and brushed the hair away from Reggie’s eyes. “As I drove here, I thought the whole time that I honestly couldn’t say you weren’t already my lover. Does that make any sense? You’re already inside me. Here.” 

Bernie pulled Reggie’s hand up under his shirt onto his chest. “Let me say it again in a different way. We are lovers.”

Reg reached over and drew Bernie’s hand over his heart. 

Bernie leaned in and whispered, so that Reg could feel his breath on his ear, “This week I’ve had a few spectacularly sad wanks, myself.”


End file.
